Week 11 Flashcards

Question

What are attributions?

Answer 1

‘Attributions’ are about how we explain it People aim to determine the causes of events and experiences Attributions differ on several dimensions - Internal versus external (i.e., dispositional vs situational) - Stable versus unstable (i.e., lasting vs transient) - Global versus specific (i.e., broad vs narrow) Causes can vary along these dimensions

Answer 2

Are there individual differences in the sorts of attributions people make? - Concept of attributional (or ‘explanatory’) style - Focus on explanations for negative events

Answer 3

- Focus on explanations for negative events - e.g., “You do badly on a psychology exam. Why?” ◦ “I’m stupid” **Internal, Stable, Global** ◦ “I’m not good at psych” **Internal, Stable, Specific** ◦ “I was tired” **Internal, Unstable, Specific** ◦ “The exam was unfair” **External, Unstable, Specific** ◦ “I have bad luck” **External, Stable, Global** Attributional style is focused on negative events * ‘Pessimism’ is the disposition to explain such events with Internal, Stable & Global causes ◦ this sense of pessimism differs from standard sense (i.e., negative expectations for the future) * Pessimists may also explain positive events as External, Unstable & Specific (e.g., due to chance) * Both pessimism & optimism may be irrational

Answer 4

Attributional style predicts many phenomena ◦ Vulnerability to depression ◦ Poorer academic performance ◦ Worse physical health (present + future) ◦ Shorter life-span ◦ Worse sales performance ◦ Poorer performance (especially after bad result) among sportspeople ◦ Losing US presidential elections ◦ Pessimistic song lyrics precede weak economic performance

Answer 5

*Constructs & attributions refer to perceptual and explanatory processes * Abilities & skills are another kind of cognitive concept * Most cognitive abilities are school-related ◦ Verbal, mathematical & spatial abilities * Recent extension of the intelligence concept to include emotional & social abilities

Answer 6

Perceiving emotion ◦ Accurate recognition of own emotions & nonverbal perception of other people’s Using emotion ◦ Use of own emotions to guide & plan behaviour Understanding emotion ◦ Predicting others’ emotional states & reasoning about them Managing emotion ◦ Ability to control & regulate emotions - EI is distinct from general intelligence - It is ideally measured not by self-ratings but by performance on tests with correct & incorrect answers - Correlates with Openness & Agreeableness - Has many correlates ◦ Academic performance ◦ Job performance ◦ Social sensitivity ◦ Less antisocial behaviour

Answer 7

The self can be understood as a mental representation of one’s personal attributes Two individual difference variables relevant to it 1. Self-complexity ◦ Degree to which the self’s structure is complex 2. Self-esteem ◦ Degree to which the self is positively valued

Answer 8

Defined as number of ‘self-aspects’ and degree of distinctness of them - Early research suggested that greater self-complexity buffers people against negative life events - However, it also seemed to be associated with greater depression - If ‘complexity’ implies a fragmented, incoherent or confused self, it may have negative consequences - ‘Self-concept clarity’ may be more important than self-complexity

Answer 9

- My beliefs about myself often conflict with one another - I spend a lot of time wondering what sort of person I am - Sometimes I feel that I am not really the person that I appear to be - My beliefs about myself seem to change very frequently

Answer 10

- Having a positive global self-evaluation is frequently claimed to have many benefits, but ... ◦ Little evidence it promotes (rather than results from) academic achievement ◦ Little evidence that it promotes work performance ◦ Little evidence it promotes health ◦ Not associated with less antisocial behaviour ◦ Not associated with greater social sensitivity ◦ May promote aggression in response to insults and when self-esteem is threatened ◦ Need for positive self-view may not be cross-culturally universal

Answer 11

- The stability or consistency of self-esteem may matter more than its level - ‘Fragile’ self-esteem fluctuates in response to life events‘ - Defensive’ self-esteem ◦ High explicit + low implicit self-esteem - Narcissism ◦ Sense of superiority & arrogance ◦ Entitlement to special treatment ◦ Need for admiration ◦ Sensitivity to criticism

Answer 12

Social networking sites may be ideal playgrounds for narcissists, with opportunities to ... ◦ create self-promoting content ◦ display personal appearance ◦ pursue many shallow relationships Study by Davenport et al. (2014) examined how Facebook &Twitter use correlates with narcissism ◦ “my body is nothing special” versus “I like to look at my body” ◦ “I am more capable than other people” versus “There is a lot that I can learn from other people”

Answer 13

◦ Were more active on Facebook & had more FB friends ◦ Tweeted more & had more Twitter followers ◦ Wanted their profiles to attract friends/followers more ◦ Believed it was more important that friends/followers admired them ◦ Research on Instagram shows similar findings: narcissism goes with more selfies, more time & more frequent profile picture updates (Moon et al., 2016) ◦ Associations with narcissism may be larger for social media with a strong visual component

Week 11 Flashcards

(37 cards)